About the YouTube video.
I could take Atheist quotes, like "Christians are idiots, anyone who believes in god is an idiot" or another like it. Then I could go find a bunch of Christians who made progress in science, won Pullitzer and Nobel prizes and put it into a video, along with some actors, soldier who went to war and whatever else to make a persuading video, it's not like it proves anything.
Less atheists mean less atheists that go to prison, simple, doesn't mean the ratio is going to be spot on, since there are other religions to take into account.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a Christian, he followed the "make-believe" God, doesn't have to do anything with his accomplishments though. (great, scrolled down to view other comments, atleast I won't have to continue..)
Okay, let's say then.
The Bible has been butchered by the Church, it was progressive piece, but the progression went astray somewhere along the line. Now the Church is stuck at a point where they can't renew it since they screwed up bad. Unlike how the Church of the Latter-day Saints continues to be progressive.
I'm not trying to prove anything. It's just that there are many Christians that seem to think atheists are useless and worthless and evil (as it quoted from the bible).
Also, the reason it showed the prison information is because in any group, the average for the large group and the average for a small section should be the same or close. Atheists are greatly underrepresented in prison. Also, it in no way says theists are useless and worthless. Isaac Newton was a Christian, and one of the most important people in physics, as is Galileo and Copernicus. The Greeks and Muslims and Indians that came up with the foundation for modern mathematics. | |
SpeyMan, take a population of 1000. Ten percent of that 1000 are atheists - that is, 100 of them.
Now, put 10% of that population of 1000 in prison. That is, 100 criminals. You would expect that 1 in 10 of the people you select - at random - to be criminals would be atheists. Which means that a tenth of the prison population should be an atheist - the same 10% we had on the larger scale. It should be the same. Thing is, when it comes to the wider community, this is not what we see - the prison population is very much NOT atheist. I don't think this is because of any moral superiority inherent to atheism, I actually just think it's a result of the people who are likely to be atheists - the educated, in particular. Atheism is correlated with education, education is negatively correlated with going to jail, result? Less atheists go to jail then expected. World, regardless of whether it's talking about 'intellectual atheism' or 'moral atheism', it's saying the same thing - lack of God makes you either immoral or stupid. Atheists are neither. Additionally, atheists ARE oppressed in America. Fundamentalist Christianity is everywhere in Americaland - should atheists actually be prevented from living in half the friggin' country because they're not safe there? A recent-ish survey suggested that atheists were the least trusted social group in America - more Americans wouldn't vote for someone just because they were an atheist then any other group, including homosexuals and muslims. As for atheists being angry, I think this says rather a lot. This article is also rather enlightening. The Bible has been butchered by the Church, it was progressive piece, but the progression went astray somewhere along the line. So progressive, it advocates slavery, genocide, and infinite punishment for finite sins. Whoops. | |
And now I expet Jp to go and write a much longer blog post on this. <_<
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Perhaps not right now, Pop. Jp has exams to study for. But perhaps later. I do have a quota to fill, after all.
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World, regardless of whether it's talking about 'intellectual atheism' or 'moral atheism', it's saying the same thing - lack of God makes you either immoral or stupid. Atheists are neither. Learn what they meant please. No atheists today are moral atheists because they for the most part adhere to laws put together by theists. Additionally, atheists ARE oppressed in America. Fundamentalist Christianity is everywhere in Americaland - should atheists actually be prevented from living in half the friggin' country because they're not safe there? You don't even live in America, and you're making gross generalizations. You guys are complete pussies if you think you're oppressed. You try to rationalize it but in reality you have all the rights and liberties everyone else has. Maybe this argument would have worked better in the Middle Ages. A recent-ish survey suggested that atheists were the least trusted social group in America - more Americans wouldn't vote for someone just because they were an atheist then any other group, including homosexuals and muslims. As for atheists being angry, I think this says rather a lot. This article is also rather enlightening. Well, maybe if you guys didn't come off as a bunch of condescending know it all jackasses that'd change. | |
Please watch this, Weaver: http://youtube.com/watch?v=tiyJzWy3CDQ
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"First, that the Christianity of the churches was unreasonable, therefore unbelievable, but that stripped of priestly mystery, ritual, and dogma, reinterpreted in the light of historical evidence and human experience, and substituting the Newtonian cosmology for the discredited Biblical one, Christianity could be conformed to reason. Second, morality required no divine sanction or inspiration, no appeal beyond reason and nature, perhaps not even the hope of heaven or the fear of hell; and so the whole edifice of Christian revelation came tumbling to the ground." --Merrill Peterson on Thomas Jefferson's religious beliefs
Admittedly, Thomas Jefferson was labelled as a deist, not an atheist, but his point of view is almost to the point of agnosticism. | |
Learn what they meant please. No atheists today are moral atheists because they for the most part adhere to laws put together by theists. This sentence makes absolutely no sense. Morality is independent of theism. | |
Bootyboy wrote:
Learn what they meant please. No atheists today are moral atheists because they for the most part adhere to laws put together by theists. Actually that's not true, be objective and understand that we judge morality on very religion rooted standards. | |
Please watch this, Weaver: http://youtube.com/watch?v=tiyJzWy3CDQ They didn't get mistreated at all, they were just isolated. People make choices on who to be friends with based on ideological choices all the time. | |
So stopping outside someone's house and staring there as if it were a zoo isn't mistreatment? Being told you're going to hell, or that your children are going to hell isn't mistreatment? Being forced out of your home by your landlord because you're an atheist isn't mistreatment? Then what the fuck is mistreatment to you?
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Popisfizzy wrote:
So stopping outside someone's house and staring there as if it were a zoo isn't mistreatment? Being told you're going to hell, or that your children are going to hell isn't mistreatment? Uh no. I get told I'm going to hell all the time because I'm agnostic(not christian). And if people look at you who the fuck cares? You're a complete pussy if you do. Being forced out of your home by your landlord because you're an atheist isn't mistreatment? That's not provable, and while it may have been so it also may have been something that they through in there to make a story. Then what the fuck is mistreatment to you? REAL mistreatment, the ones where your rights are taken away and you're persecuted by the educated not the hicks. The hicks persecute everyone. | |
The thing is everyone who is a minority is oppressed in America. To oppress is to be American(sadly). My point is you(Atheists) need to stop whining and throwing fits about how "oppressed" you are.
I was born in Russia*, and my family immigrated to America. I live in North Carolina. Now, if the gears aren't clicking, let me explain.I have a Russian accent. Now, When the majority of people down here they think "stupid communist"(the majority being a bunch of stupid rednecks). I can't tell you how often people laugh at me just because of how I sound. I've been belittled so many times in school, I had to go to a counselor to deal with the stress. That's oppression. I know what oppression is. But unlike the Atheists on BYOND, I don't cry and throw a fit like a little school girl every time something happens, or every time I find a Pro-Russian video. I deal with it. Oppression happens to nearly everyone, and let it slide. That's life. Is it right? No. Is it fair? No. But it does happen, and you have to suck up your pride, and move on. *- Born in Moscow, USSR, in 1990. In 1998, my family decided it was time to leave the hell-hole that is The Motherland. we moved to Rural North Carolina, which is about the last place for anyone who isn't a white-American protestant with an IQ under 100 wants to be. | |
Also, just so you all know, I'm not saying that atheists are mistreated*. I started this to make a point. That point being that atheists aren't worthless and evil people as so many make them out to be.
*Who did say that first of all, anyways? | |
Jp did.
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And what atheist on BYOND whines like a "little school girl"? I don't know of any that do. Normally an argument breaks out when one atheist makes a joke about theism, and there's a theist there, or when a major theist shows up and realizes there are atheists there.
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Jp does all the time, "Additionally, atheists ARE oppressed in America. Fundamentalist Christianity is everywhere in Americaland - should atheists actually be prevented from living in half the friggin' country because they're not safe there?"
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Someone get him a plaid mini-skirt. :P. It isn't all, or even most of the Atheists on BYOND, i probably made it seem like that, and that's not the case. I'm just mad at the minority. I'm not going to say any names. >_>
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*In the forbidden city in China*
"Hi I'm a American white male and I'm fervently capitalist and I think communism is completely stupid and anyone who practices or believes in it is an idiot."
Yeah I might have some bodily harm done to me.
BUT I'M NOT OPPRESSED.